Just Three Words
by LyricalAnatomy
Summary: [Originally Named:Trip]Can the living really be with the dead? Or will they find a way out of it before Paul has his way with Suze? AU. Summary inside.
1. The Ghost with Emerald Eyes

**I haven't posted any stories yet and this is my first one. Here it is..._Trip_**. (About the title, it absolutely has no connection to the story what-so-ever. I was just listening to the song at the time and I can't think of a good name for it.)

Summary: Jesse de Silva moves to Carmel, California to find himself living in a refurbished nineteenth century boarding house haunted by, none other than, Susannah Simon who was killed one hundred years earlier. Soon they both fall for eachother but there's one thing in the way, another ghost who was killed the same time Suze was, Paul Slater. Are they really meant to be? Or are the dead not supose to mingle with the human world. They find out as a murder story unravels.

**

* * *

****Suze's POV**

God, what does a girl have to do to get some privacy around here? Not that anyone knows I'm around, or anything. This is _my_ room and now, one hundred years later, I have to share it. Why is being dead such a drag?

Two people walked up the stairs and into the room. They were speaking a language that I clearly do not understand. I think it was Spanish.

I was just sitting on the window seat staring out as the ocean rolled in onto the golden sands of the beach. Then I felt someone's gaze on me. I turned to see the guy was staring right at me. I didn't really notice his appearance until then. He was one guy that was easy on the eyes.

"What?" I asked swinging my legs so they hung off the sides of the window seat. "Didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to stare or haven't you ever seen a ghost before? I'm not a mirage, you know."

"Oh, sorry." He said. "I should've realized there would be someone here after this building being so old. And yes, I have seen many ghosts before."

"So, you can talk to the dead too, huh?" I hopped off the window sill and stood up. "Mediator?"

"How," he wanted to know, "did you know that?"

"What? You didn't think there was mediator's around when I was alive? Well you're wrong, there was, and I'm one of them." I looked around. "The name's Susannah Simon," I told him, "what about you?"

"Jesse de Silva." He said. "So I'm guessing you've been around for awhile."

"One-hundred-and-seven years. Well, if you add my age, one-hundred-and-twenty-three. I'm sixteen." He looked around my age. Sixteen, not one-hundred-and-twenty-three.

"Eighteen hundreds." Then he gave me a once over. "You don't look like a-"

"Nineteenth century lady? No, because I was on the run. Trying to get out of this place before he found me and murdered me. Well, I was to late, wasn't I?"

"So how'd you-"

"Bullet through the heart." I quickly said, cutting him off. "When I mean _through_ I mean _through_. It went right to the other side. Pierced me." I walked across his room and stepped up onto his bed pointing at a small hole in the wall.

"Do you see that?" I asked him. "That's the hole the bullet went through there and now it's stuck in a block of wood in the attic under the floor boards. But no one knows that." I said with a smirk. "Only me," I stepped off his bed, "and now you. Keep it to yourself."

**Jesse's POV**

"And now you. Keep it to youself." She said to me as a little smirk played on her lips. She was the most beautiful ghost, and girl, I have ever seen. Those eyes went right through me. It was like she could read my every expression.

"So, what school are you going to?" She asked me pacing around my room.

"The Mission, I think they call it." I told her standing up. I kept my eyes on that bullet hole.

"Oh, with Father D." She said sitting back down on the window seat.

"You _know _the principal?" I asked, walking over to her as she looked out the window at the aqua coloured ocean rolling in onto the shore pushing the golden sand about.

Then she told me, "Oh yeah, he's a mediator too. He's been trying to find out why I'm still here, but I don't want to leave."

"Why not?" Her brown hair shimmered, and not just because she was a ghost either. The sunlight made her look angelic.

"Because," she sighed, "no one knows my story. Everyone thinks I just ran away. Which is half true, but no one knew I had been murdered and it wasn't even my fault I was murdered, either. He killed me and he didn't even know the real story."

"Than what's the real story?" I asked her as she pushed back some of her hair behind her ear.

"You actually want to know?" She looked surprised and I nodded. "Ok, then. Here it goes..."

**Suze's POV**

_He_ actually wanted to listen to _me_. I mean my side of the story! No one has been around to hear it. Father Dominic dosen't even know about it and here this guy Jesse is, whom I've only met like five minutes ago, is and wants to listen.

"Ok, then. Here it goes...It was eighteen-ninty-nine. My mother insisted of me getting married to this total...pig! I mean, er, the guy got right under my skin. His name was Tay Loure and he was three years older than me. Nineteen."

I shifted my gaze from the ocean to Jesse. "He wanted to marry me but I didn't want to marry him. I wasn't going to run away, I was thinking about it but I had no where to go."

"Then why did you?" He wanted to know, sitting next to me on the window seat. His warm brown eyes just melted into mine. I just met this guy and I'm already thinking about him. He seems nice, though.

"Because I had this friend, Paul, and he felt the same way Tay felt about me but my parents had arranged me with Tay. I didn't like Paul either. I tried to tell him about a million times but that didn't stop him, not one bit. At one point it was trying to kiss me and Tay just happened to see it and went frantic! He got the totally wrong impression, said I was cheating, and I ran away. I had to change the way I looked so until I left he wouldn't reconize me. I was in this very room, packing to leave. I had my hair pulled up under a cap."

"You dressed like a man to get away." He said looking me straight in the eye.

I nodded and said, "Correct. I did, but he was already in my room. When I turned around, he was there and he shot me. He didn't even stop for an explanation, just shot me then and there."

"How'd he ever get away with it?" Jesse wanted to know.

"No one ever found my body, or what's left of it, anyway." I told him. "Then he shot Paul. Right in front of me, well, right in front of my spirit because he didn't know I was there. Hid his body too but everyone thought Paul had run away with me. Like we were some runaway couple that rebelled agaisnt their parents to get married. Yeah, right. I didn't like Paul and I still don't."

"Is he still around?"

"Yes. He was a mediator, too. But he wasn't the one that helped people. Evil that guy was and still is." I shuddered.

"Well, Suze, I see you've found a friend." I heard that voice. The voice that sent cold rushes down the base of my spine and back up again. It didn't take an idiot to tell who it was.

"Leave. Me. _Alone_."

* * *

**I hope you liked it! **


	2. Querida

**I'm re-naming my story to 'Just Three Words'. That way, It's going to make more sense when the story is written. Oh, and a good book about the eighteen hundreds is the _True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle._ It's sort of grade eight and nine level, for those younger or older, but it's good. Has alot of old proper English.**

**Before I forget, special thanks to Frolicking Bananas for Jesse's sisters names.**

"What? Can't someone drop in to see an old friend?" Paul asked innocently but with a small smirk on his face. I knew he wasn't all that innocent.

"_Friend_," I snorted, "what friend are you to me? You're the reason we're both dead." I looked at him. Paul Slater, he was easy on the eyes but I hated him with a burning passion that made me want to turn him alive and kill him all over again. If that was possible, of chorse.

Then he looked at Jesse and said, "Speaking of friends, who's the guy?"

"Oh, yes, Jesse this is Paul Slater." I told Jesse boredly. "And Paul, this is Jesse de Silva. Now that you both know eachother, I think you should leave, Paul."

"Aw, Suze." He whined, but in a seductive way, walking toward me where I was sitting on the window seat. "You're not trying to get rid of me, are you? I'm the only one you've got besides the priest." He ran a smooth hand down my cheek and I slapped it away.

To my surprise Jesse spoke up and said, "Well, now she has me and I think you should listen to the lady and leave." Gentleman, he is. He said '_lady_' like it meant something. I maybe a girl but I was no nineteenth century lady. Though I tried my best in front of my family, I was no gentlewoman.

"_Lady_," Paul laughed, "she is nothing of a lady. But she slaps like one." He mumbeled rubbing his arm where I had hit it to. And Paul doesn't bruise easily. Well, he can't bruise, anyway. He's dead. Dead as a doorknob.

"Paul!" I roared. So much anger was building up inside of me that a few books lifted off of Jesse's desk and fell to the floor. "Leave!"

"Fine," he huffed, "someone had a cup of _Carnation Instant Bitch_ this morning, now didn't she?" I just sneered at him and he finally dematerialized.

"Susannah?" Jesse said and then pointed to a picture frame that was floating in midair.

"Oh," I laughed cooling my nerves, "sorry." The picture safely landed on the desk without breaking. "I have _got_ to get under control of this anger thing. Over one-hundred-years and I still can't get it right!"

"So, I'm guessing _he_ didn't move on?" Jesse wanted to know walking over to the picture and hanging it back on the navy blue walls of his room.

"No, isn't that obvious? He's not going to, either, until he gets what he wants. Me." I told him. "And at this rate he's going, he'll never move on."

"Some strange things people will do for love." Jesse said shaking his head.

"And some of the unhumane people will do to get back at them." This time I never made eye contact with Jesse. I just stared at the small crack that use to be a bullet hole. Then I got an idea. "Uh...I'll be right back."

Jesse turned around quick. "Where are you going?"

"Attic," I told him, "I'll be right back." Then I thought, "Want to come?"

He nodded. "Where are the stairs to the attic?"

I pointed to his closet and to a little hatch in the top. The closet was still empty but I told him he would have to pull himself up scince the ladder going up there was destroyed by Tay so no one would find my body when he stashed it up there until night when he could dispose of me. He had gotten rid of Paul right away even though neither of our bodies have been found.

"I don't even think my _madre_ has been up here yet." He told me as I stood over the latch. I just dematerialized and materialized back up here. "Now, what are you looking for?" Then he noticed the floor and his expression changed from interested to disgusted.

"What," he wanted to know, "is _that_?"

"Blood. Dried blood, of chorse. It dosen't stay liquid forever. It sunk in and stained the floorboards. If you stand by the window you can see the print from my body." He made himself look away.

"That is a very morbid memory." He exclaimed walking over to where I was. I was staring down at a cracked floorboard right over Jesse's room.

"I think I might be able to get it out." I said kneeling down on the creaky dusty attic floor. I picked at it and the bullet started to move. It finally was free and I picked it out and put it in the palm of Jesse's spread hand.

"Rusty." He said.

"Bloody." I corrected him. "And a little rusty too, I guess."

* * *

The bullet was cold in my hand. Over one-hundred-years of cold. Why would someone kill a person as nice as Susannah. As beautiful as her. I just met her but I knew we would be friends.

"Why didn't you tell the priest-Father Dominc I think his name is-about this?" I asked her.

"_Because_, being a priest and all, he's all about doing good biddings and helping ghost's move on and I know if I told him about it then he would try to find my body, or what's left of it, and I don't know exactly why I'm still here so it might make me move on, and I don't want to." She told me ducking under the attic's low ceiling.

"I see." I looked at her. She wasn't dressed like a lady. White long sleeved blouse, black pants, boots, not a dress like she should've been wearing. Dressed like a man to get away from the two people she dispised. To live, but she wasn't luckey enough to get out.

She walked over to an old trunk that was sitting in the corner. There was a large lock on it that had great fancy craftsman ship.

"Do you know where the key is?" I asked, walking over and standing beside her.

"Of chorse!" She told me and started to dematerialize. "Up there."

* * *

I was sitting on a beam that was holding up the roof. The key was still there on a nail that was sticking out of the beam and I put it in my pocket.

I swing around the beam so I was only hanging on it with my arms and legs. Then I leg my legs go and only my arms were holding on. It was only about a six inch drop. It was nothing. Not like I was going to make any noise or anything.

"Why didn't you just dematerialize down?" He wanted to know as I took the rusted key out of my pocket.

"Because it's more fun this way." I laughed putting the key into the lock. It unlocked and I put it down beside the trunk and flung the trunk's top open. Dust came off it and filled the air causing Jesse to cough.

"Here it is." I said unfolding a white blanket that was now a yellowish colour. It was stained with age. "The gun used to kill me, and the knife used to kill Paul."

"I thought you said he was shot." Jesse pointed out.

"Oh, he was stabbed first, then when he didn't die Tay shot him, but only in the side and then stabbed him to make sure he was dead. The bullet is probably stil embedded in Paul's clothes that he was wearing when he got shot. It never went through as easy."

"Is Tay still around? I mean, his ghostly being?" He asked me as I placed the gun and knife back into the chest and locked it.

"No." I said to him materializing up onto the beam again, placing the key back in it's rightful spot, and comming back down again. "But I did see him die. He died when he was twenty. His friend, Greenly Porter, accidentally shot the little bugger when he was trying to get back into his house. The door was locked and Greenly thought it was a robber so he shot him dead on the spot. Who knew you could get so much glory out of murder? Best night of my life, I tell you."

Jesse looked at me strangely then I said, "If you were murdered, you would feel the same."

"Hector, dinner!" I heard his mother call up from downstairs.

"Hector?" I asked confused. "I thought you only had sisters and that your father died."

"I do only have sisters and-hey, wait? How did you know my father died?" He wanted to know walking towards the hatch.

"I over heard your mother talking." I told him. "And who the heck is Hector, anyway?"

He straightened up and said in a matter-of-factly way, "I am. My middle name is Jesse but everyone calls me it anyway." Then he dissappeared down the hatch. I heard his feet hit the floor and I dematerialized.

* * *

I went downstairs to meet my _madre_ and my sisters for dinner. That would be five sisters, to be exact. But Marta and Esperanza have graduated and moved out long before we moved to Carmel, California. So now it was only Mercedes, Josefina, and Catalina.

After setting the table we all sat down to eat. As mom was talking I noticed a shimmer of something in the corner of your eye. It was Susannah. She was looking at the pictures on the wall and there was a very old one of my family. All eight of us. I was only young then, about six. She looked at the picture and said, "Aw." I shot her a warning look.

"Jesse," _Madre_ said as she took my attention off of Susannah, "what are you glaring at?"

"Oh, um...nothing." I lied as I picked at my dinner. Susannah mouthed '_Sorry_' but with a little smirk on her face.

"You start school in three days." Mother said to us. "But Jesse, I haven't signed you up yet. We're going to have to go down to the Mission tomorow and get your papers straightened out."

"You can meet Father Dominic there." Susannah said out loud. It's not like anyone else but me can hear her. "I'll go tell him later. He dosen't know you're a mediator." I nodded just slightly enough so only Susannah could notice and no one else.

"Jesse," Mercedes said, "you're acting quite strange lately."

"Paranoid." Catalina chimed in sipping some water from her glass. "Reading too much."

"Talking to himself alot too." Josefina laughed. Being the youngest she dosen't take things very seriously. I made a face. "Maybe it's the ghosts."

"Ghosts." Catalina, much more mature than Josefina and only a year younger than me, spat. "There's no such thing as ghosts." Susannah, who was leaning on a wall behind her made a noise of disgust as if she was offended.

"If you excuse me," I said standing up, "I'm finished." I put my plate and glass in the sink after rinsing them and then headed for the stairs.

"Going to talk to yourself some more, Jesse?" Josefina laughed.

"Josefina." Mother said in a warning voice, placing her napkin down on the dinning room table. I ignored the other comments she muttered under her breath and began to climb the stairs expecting Susannah to be there. I was right. She was in her same place: on the window sill.

* * *

I was staring out at the sun that was now on the edge of the horizon daring to dip lower until the night sky prevailed it's dark blue's and sliky black. The stars like glitter as it mingles with the Milky Way. It was pure beauty, if I ever seen such. The night. The darkness. The yellow moon as it overs over the Pacific Ocean making the aqua blue water glow radiantly as it reflects.

"Beautiful sight, isn't it?" I sighed, turning my head toward Jesse. He stood not talking. I drew my attention away from the window long enough to let out another heavy sigh and say, "This isn't about what happened downstairs, is it? That's nothing. My step-brothers, well two of them, thought I was crazy." I stood up. "Don't get your panties in a bunch over nothing."

"My _what_?" He asked sounding shocked. I was sort of shocked that those words came out of my mouth and that I said it to him.

"Uh..never mind. It dosen't matter." I said to him pacing around, changing the conversation. "I'll talk to Father Dominic tomorow before you arrive there. I'm sure he'll be happy enough to have a mediator as a student. But the guy likes to do charity work. '_God's bidding_' he calls it. I call it a pain in the butt since he's been trying to use it on me but whatever he does," I huffed, "it'll never work."

"You don't _want_ to leave?" _Not now that you're here_. I never said that, of chorse. I'll say somethings in front of him but I'll never say that.

"Nah." My lack of proper English never seems to amaze me. "I'd rather stick around. Stop Paul from whatever mischeif he's getting himself into _this_ time." Then I remembered. "Oh yeah, if he says anything to you about pretty much _anything_ it's probably a lie."

"I'll remember." He said in a low voice. "Anything else, Susannah?"

_Susannah Simon!_ I heard Father Dominic calling me. He wasn't in his best of moods. You could tell by the tone of his voice.

"Nope, nothing else. Look, I got to go. Father Dominic is calling me." I told him starting to dematerialize.

"Good-bye, _querda_." He said to me and when I arrived at the Mission he had me stunned. _Querida_?

**Sorry it took awhile to update but I've been trying to put as much effort into my stories as I can. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading chapter two!**

**Mrs.JW**


	3. New Mediator In Town

**Sorry it took a little while to update. I've been busy, again, with school work and all that jazz. I'm not particularly happy with this chapter, myself, but I hope you enjoy it. R&R, please.**

"So, you say he's a mediator?" Father Dominic asked as I paced in the moonlight of his office. He was sitting down at a computer that was on his desk. His eyes glued to the screen as he tried to figure out how to play spidersolitaire.

I touched a droopy tendril that was on the window sill next to a colourful arangement of flowers. It was like a rainbow of flowers. Each one alive and full of life. Unlike _some_ people. Definitly unlike me. Even the flowers glowed more intense than I. But they glowed with vibrance, not a supernatural glow.

"Yes." I murmered looking out onto the dark streets only lit by the street lights. "He's new to Carmel. You should see him tomorow."

"And what did you say his name was again?" He asked me starting to get fustrated with the computer. "Technology," he spat, "I'll never understand it."

"It's Jesse." I told him turning around from the large window to face the crucifix which was rumored to 'cry tears of blood'. Rumored by some of the students that attended the Junipero Serra Mission Academy. "Jesse de Silva."

"Spanish." Father Dominic pointed out. "And he's living in the house that you were killed in?"

"Not only the house," I included, "the _room_." Father Dominic's eyebrow went up in curiosity and in warning.

"Susannah," he said in a deeper voice, "I don't want you to try and cause any-er-_mischeif_. What I mean is I want you to... _behave_." I knew what he meant. "It's not right. Male and female teenagers in the same room it's..."

"I get the point, Father Dominic." I assured him leaning up against a wall. "I won't try and fall in love with him." _Though it's going to be hard_. "I'm dead, he's alive. It's...impossible."

"I'm glad you feel the same way, Susannah." Father Dominic stood up and then pushed in his chair then said, "Well, we also have another mediator that has just moved here. Kerri Jennings. I've already had a word with her, charming girl."

"Hmm." I mumbeled still leaning against the walls.

"Well, I must turn in now." Father Dominic told me leaving his office. So I left the Mission and materialized back into Jesse's room.

* * *

"Oh my gosh!" I said turning around quickly and covering my eyes. "I am so so sorry." He had been changing his shirt. I wasn't _that_ sorry, if you know what I mean. The guy was good looking so don't you think the rest of him is, too?

"I'll just-" I stuttered. "I'll just leave. Sorry." I knew my face was burning. I could feel it and I felt on fire.

"No no," he started to say pulling on a shirt, "that's alright. I should've changed in the bathroom." Well, _that_ made my night. Better than seeing Paul without his shirt on. Not that I did or anything. I mean, why would I? Ok, you know what? I'm just going to shut up before I say something I'm going to regret.

"Oh, ok then." I turned around hoping that he wouldn't notice my flaming cheeks. I sat back on the window seat. "I was just talking to Father Dominic, " I told him, "and he told me about another mediator being in town."

"Kerri." He said quickly sitting down on his bed looking me straight in the eye. "I know." His brown eyes bore into mine and I smiled. But then I realized: He _knows_ her?

"You _know_ her?" I asked staring out the window again. Staring at the ocean is like a drug. You stare at it once and then you're glued to it for life. It's addictive.

"Yes, her father is the whole reason I'm here." Well I could just hug her father then. "My _madre_ works for him and he moved us to California. He's a good man. Helped us after my father died. That's how I met Kerri."

"Oh." I said, my voice toneless. "Father Dominic said she was, I quote, '_a charming girl_'." He made no comment about it. Just a slight huff and collapsed onto his bed. Soon after I dematerialized after he, once again, confused me with that one single word: _querida_.

* * *

When Jesse went to the Mission the next day I was already there talking to Father Dominic who was watering his plants.

"Pick up a spray and make yourself useful." He told me nodding toward a bottle half filled with water and a special mixture put in with it. 'Plant food' it said on the packet.

"Oh yeah, Father Dominic." I said to him sarcastically. "And what if someone happens to walk in and see's a floating bottle spraying water? Huh?"

"Father Dominic?" I heard a familiar woman's voice say and I looked toward the door. It was Mrs. de Silva. Jesse looked alot like her. Black hair and brown eyes. She was tall and slim, too.

"Oh, hello, Mrs. de Silva. Back again, I see?" She had enrolled Mercedes, Josefina and Catalina on different days.

"Yes, I'm here to enroll my son Jesse here at the Mission." She walked into the office with Jesse following in suit. When he noticed me I winked at him and it put a little smile on his face and blushed a light pink. Almost as pink as the carnation's behind me.

Father Dominic sat down at his desk asking Mrs. de Silva if she wanted to sit and thenhe said, "Oh yes, of chorse. Let's get to it, then. Jesse, if you'd like to go take a look around the school you're more than welcome."

"Thank you, Father." He said gesturing for me to go with him as he walked out the door and I met him out there and as soon as we were out of sight I started to talk.

"Like your new school?" I asked him as we strolled down the breezeway. The sun was beating down hard today, just like any other day. The air was calm but the streets were filled with tourists. All you could here were the smooth hum of the humming birds and the fountains water bubbling.

"Yes." He replied, looking around at the school. "It's very..."

"_Old_?" I suggested. "I know but it's very beautiful. Just like I remember it when it was first constructed." The first time it was constructed it wasn't all that beautiful, actually, because none of the flowers had grew in yet. By spring it was one of the most stunning buildings around.

"You attended school here?" He asked me, surprised.

"Where else? But I ran away before I could finish. I was going to be graduating the next year." Then I hear footsteps. Not Jesse's, obviously not mine because I don't have any, but someone was coming down the breezeway. A tall slim shadow appears on the wall and then from behind it wasa girl with aburn hair and dark blue eyes and this very unfashionable bright yellow shirtcoupled with greengreen capri's appeared. Then she looked at Jesse, then at me.

"She can see me." I said, not moving, only standing still next to Jesse. The girl just stood there also at the end of the breezeway in the shade of a pillar. She flipped her straight aburn hair over her shoulder.

"Jesse," she said, "is it too much for a guy to say hi to an old friend? And speaking of friends: aren't you going to introduce me to yours?"

"Oh," Jesse said breaking a trance he was in, "yes. Susannah," he turned to me, "this is my friend Father Dominic told you of, Kerri Jennings. Kerri," he turned to her, "this is my friend Susannah Simon."

"Father Dominic told you about me?" She wanted to know walking up to us? "I'm guessing it's probably because I'm a mediator, right?" I nodded at her.

"So was I...once." I leaned up against a pillar that was supporting the breezeway. They were thick and good for shade from the hot Californian sun but no matter if you're hiding from that flaming orange ball in the sky, the heat will always get to you.

"So was your friend Paul." She said to me. _Paul_? She's met _Paul_?

"You've met Paul?" I asked, my teeth gritted at the name. It sounded so..._evil_. But the name suited him. But, of chorse, so would the nameSatan.

"Yes, on my way here, actually. He was just casually strolling the sidewalks and I walked up to him when I was out of sight. He told me he knows you and that he knows Jesse." The way she talks to so annoying. Don't get me wrong, I think she's nice and all, but Kerri talks all plain and proper English and she pauses a half a second after every word so that people can understand her, it seems. Unlike me I talk all fast and tend to get out of control and mumble.

"Yeah," I said, "I introduced them after Paul showed up at Jesse's."

"Why would he show up at Jesse's?"

"Because I was there." Ok, now watch this. Kerri turns from this cheery preppy buttercup girl to a jealous wreck in a meer ten seconds flat!

"And why were _you_ there?" You could tell Jesse wanted out of this. I wouldn't blame him, I wanted to leave too. I don't want to meet this old pal of Jesse's who's going to go on and on about their childhood and teenage dates and stuff. When I was a teenager, I already had a fiancee to be married in like five years.

"She was killed there." Jesse answered, finally speaking up but then his voice was drowned out by the voice of his mother that echoed down the breezeway.

"Jesse!" She called out and then some other Spanish I clearly don't understand. Jesse looked happy enough to leave and I followed him.

"So," I said when we were walking out, "when were you going to tell me more about Miss Buttercup?"

"_Buttercup_?" He echoed arching his eyebrows.

"That _untasteful_ yellow shirt really got me thinking. Hey! Maybe that's what we chould call her: Buttercup." I wasn't serious, of chorse.

"Uh, no, Susannah." He said.

"I was just kidding." I told him. "Speaking of names, what does that word mean that you call me? Keer-da or something?"

"Not even close, _querida_."

"Yeah! That's it!" Maybe I should borrow some of Father Dominic's books and look this one up. Tricky, though, I would have to get the correct spelling for it.

"That's for me to know, _querida,_" this time when he said it it sounded like he was mocking me, "and for you to find out." My mouth dropped open. No fair! I don't know Spanish!

"But that's...that's no fair!" I exclaimed running to catch up to him from where we had stopped to talk.

"Not everything in life is fair." You can say that again.


	4. Jealousy Takes Its Way

**Thanks you guys for the reviews and the people who corrected some of my spelling errors. I appreciate it.**

* * *

I was sitting by the fountain at the Mission Academy. Everything was silent like before. I like it. It has a certain sense of peace and tranquility. Even though there's cemetery right next to it, but what do the dead have to say, you ask? A lot. You wouldn't know until you take a nice long walk in my shoes.

I wonder who that Kerri girl is. She looked very protective over Jesse. It's not like I'm going to snatch him up and take him from her, I barley know the guy but he's one of the first person I've talked to in over one-hundred-years, so I'll have to manage with who I have to talk to.

Because, really, Father Dominic isn't all that a great host unless he's trying to guide me out of here, onto my next life. But I don't want to go. Who says I have to go?

Out of the silence I heard a voice. That same preppy girly voice from a few minutes before. But this time, oh this time it was going to be worse because Jesse isn't here to stop her from what she's going to say to me.

"Well, hello, Suze. Fancy meeting you here again." Kerri said cheerfully but with no sign of innocence in her voice to be heard.

"Hm," I said. "Charmed." I was sitting back on from her staring into the flaming sun that was reflecting off of the water. Yet, I had no reflection in the water.

"Look, let's just cut to the chase, shall we?" She stood behind me with her hands on her sides. I could see it in the reflection of the water. "You are dead and Jesse is alive. So whatever intentions you may have in that head of yours, it's not going to work."

"I have no intentions with Jesse. He is only merely a friend to me, and is it so wrong for a girl to have a friend? Especially since she hasn't talked to a single living being since the day she died? But don't worry, I only just met Jesse."

"But that Paul guy-"

"That Paul guy," I spat, "is an immature jerk who doesn't know what he's talking about. He's the reason we're both dead. Why do you even care, anyway?" So, I was being a little bit bitchy at her. But she started it.

"_Because_," she said in an annoyed way like I was stupid or something, "you and Jesse seem to have an _attraction_ toward each other. He was fast spoken for you. He didn't even seem all that happy to see me." While Kerri pondered, I stood up, ready to go.

"Well, I wouldn't know about that. Jesse has his own opinions about things." Then I started to dematerialize and I was gone. One minute I was in the Mission courtyard, the next I was in Jesse's room sitting on his window seat.

"You always seem," I heard a voice, "to find your way back here, don't you?"

"Do I have any other choice?" I asked Jesse, my eyes still staring at the ocean that was twinkling off of the water like diamonds. Like many aqua colored crystals that faded into a darker emerald green. Like the one that was strung around my neck on a gold chain. The one that my mother had given me for my sixteenth birthday. She said they matched my eyes and I've been wearing it ever since.

"I guess not." He said walking over to where I was sitting. I never looked at him. I didn't let him read my expressions of how Kerri made me have such a _nice_ impression of her.

Not.

There's a name that's used these days for girls like her: A jealous girlfriend. But was I going to tell Jesse about what she said to me? No, I should not.

* * *

"Did you tell her?" Paul asked Kerri as he leaned against one of the pillar's of the breeze way where they were supposed to meet again.

"Yes." Kerri answered, dropping her sweet candy coated voice to a harsher tone. "But she seems so," she paused for a minute to try and find the right word, "_dull_ about the whole thing. Like she doesn't know what she's got right under her nose."

"We don't want her to find out what she's got under her nose, remember?" Paul snapped back bitterly.

"All because you're so greedy about your girls." Kerri muttered under her breath but Paul heard her anyway. "Christ, don't get your panties in a bunch. I made it pretty clear to her that they can't be together. The alive with the alive, and the dead with the dead."

"Just how it should be."

* * *

**Suze's POV**

My eyes still on the water, even though it was tranquil, never calmed me down from what Kerri had said to me. She made it pretty clear that Jesse was hers. I really care.

I knew my emotions were visible. I just didn't want Jesse to catch a glimpse of my face and ask about it. But of course he was going to see it. According to Paul, _mediators know everything . . . _

"Susannah," I heard his smooth voice say. "What's wrong? You're not talking." It sort of surprised me how he _wanted_ me to talk. I'm not all that interesting. And when I do get talking, it's hard to get me to stop. My mother would tell me it's not very lady like to cut people off when they're talking and to sneak out in the middle of the night, as well. But sometimes I think I was born in the wrong century.

"Oh, uh," I croaked, "nothing is wrong. Why would there be anything wrong?" I forced the words out of my mouth. I knew they never sounded very nice. My voice was harsh as I said them.

He sat down next to me on the window sill. The light reflecting in to hit his face at just the right angle. The sun was warm and so was the rays it was beating down upon me. Warm. Something I will never be. Never again.

"There must be _something _wrong if Susannah Simon is not talking and ignoring me." I kept a straight face as he tried to meet his eyes with mine but I tore my gaze from him. It was hard to turn away from that white radiant smile, but I did it.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?" I shook my head no. "Is this something to do with Kerri?" Wow, mediator _and_ psychic. What a great package. I shook my head no again as my hair fell in my face. I brushed it away and over my shoulder with a flick of a hand.

Then I finally said, "It feels like I should trust you," I breathed. "But I barley know you." I curled up in a ball, pulling my legs close to my chest and resting my chin on my knees. My hair fell into my eyes again and I was looking at him through the hair. This time I never bothered brushing it away. I let it cover my eyes and my expressions.

"But you should." He said, tucking the piece of hair behind my ear. "But if that's how you feel," he swung his legs over the side of the window seat and stepped off of it, "I'll give you time. But there's something in me that makes me trust you, _querida_." Every time he says it I get goose bumps. It's something he calls me and I'll never know what it means. Maybe it's something bad, is that why he won't tell me?

"Jesse, it's just -" I turned around, he was gone. I was left to stare at the room. It had changed so much over the past century. I remember all the colors it was painted, designs is was wallpapered with, and how every day of every year I would sit here and do nothing. Talk to no one, because no one could see me. And no one ever will. If I could just live one more time...

**Sorry that was short and sorry that it took so long for me to update.**

**-M. JW-**


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